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Marty Black
Lt. Marty Black is a pilot with the Gryphon Fighter Squadron attached to the NX-01 Enterprise. Early Years Born in July, 2113, Marty was born in the small town of Marthaville, Texas (he wasn't actually born on the Fourth of July but sometimes he says he was if it might interest the ladies). Marty's folks bounced around Texas and the entire southern United States when he was a kid, working as construction engineers on various projects. Long hours stuck in the middle of nowhere gave rise to dreams of flying, and Marty's own bigger, better, faster personality took 'flying' and turned it into 'spacing' before too long. Space Jock As soon as he hit the magic age of 16, Marty enrolled in the Spacing Guild Merchant Marines. It might not be as glamorous as Starfleet, but it sure as hell was a lot more laid-back. Marty was content seeing the parts of the galaxy where people actually lived instead of the ones with strange aliens who wanted to kill you half the time. It wasn't exactly a great living, but it was good enough. Genoecide And then things got serious. Earth was gone, just like that, and - well, everyone knows the story from there. Marty himself doesn't look back on those years with anything approaching fond memories. But he does have some share of pride in helping Starfleet shelter what was left of humanity and get them settled on Gaia. Starting Over At least for the first twelve or so years. Marty spent his time in the Guild running supplies to Gaia and the rest of the galaxy. After a while, though (admittedly, a long while), Marty started to grow numb to it all. When kids who hadn't even been *born* when he signed on started moving up and on to better things, Marty knew he had to get out of there. In the last year of the Xindi War, he put in his papers and applied for Starfleet Academy on the same day and soon became one of the oldest cadets on record. (Not the oldest though, that honor belonged and still belongs to a Vulcan scientist who had apparently learned everything possible to learn in his first field of civilian study - or that's the story, anyway) It took some time for Marty to mesh with the vastly different institutional personality of Starfleet, but he'd been around the block enough times not to scrub out like some yahoo just out of high school. Besides, Marty really is about as good a pilot as he claims to be in bars. He graduated from the Academy in three years (thanks mainly to some creative use of past experience to dodge some of the more menial courses) and got himself the rank of Lieutenant and an itchy new uniform. Personality Marty's basically a space cowboy. He does his job, and does it well, but at this point in his life, all that Starfleet business is just a means to an end (said end being living the good life, maybe settling down with someone willing to put up with a cowboy like him). He's laid back and easy-going, on and off duty, and has an eye for cold drinks and hot ladies. Statistics Age: 57 Hair: White Eyes: Green Height: 6 ft